


A Fairy Thing

by deskclutter



Category: Christabel, Princess Bride (1987), Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Adventures, Creepy, F/M, Gen, Horror, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:35:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tristran and Yvaine arrive at an old inn on a winter's night, with more guests behind them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fairy Thing

  
Once upon a winter's eve, a fairy child alighted at a quiet inn. "Good evening," said the child to the innkeeper. "If you please, I would like a room."  
The innkeeper, a little bewildered, asked of the child her parents' whereabouts. "Oh sir," said the child. "I have not got even one, and am travelling on my own." The innkeeper was a man who could not bear the thought of throwing a lost child out into the snow and the storm on her own, so he hastily showed her to a room, and begged her not to hesitate to ask should she need a thing. The fairy child agreed most readily, and turned her apple-red cheeks up in a smile to him as he closed the door behind him.  
When she entered the dining hall in a wispy dress that appeared to be constructed of material not unlike the texture of a cobweb, she found several other guests already at the table. The man greeted her affably, while the disagreeable woman merely nodded her head. A fire crackled in the hearth, cheerily spitting sparks at the metal grate. "My name is Tristran," said the man, "And this is Yvaine."  
"I am Gertrude," said the fairy child sweetly. "It is very nice to meet you, sir."  
The woman's eyebrow arched gently at that, but she gave no other sign of having been offended. The fairy child sniffed subtly in disdain. "Where do you come from, sir, if you please?" she directed towards Tristran.  
"Why, behind us, of course," said Tristran, just as affably as before. "And we go before us, if that was to be your next question."  
"Oh," said the child, and seemed to promptly decide that Tristran was quite as disagreeable as the woman.  
The innkeeper brought out their dinner then, hearty plates heaped with plump sausage, crusty bread, and a deliciously sharp cheese. To the waifish little girl he gave the largest helping, for it seemed to him she was all skin and bone, hardly healthy for a girl-child travelling on her own. She picked at her plate, nibbling at a crust of warm bread as the other two tucked into the last of their meals at more sedentary rate. The innkeeper's wife, quite easily as kind and good hearted as the innkeeper himself, exclaimed at the heap left on her plate. "Good gracious, child! Starving yourself won't do at all!"  
"Oh please, ma'am," said the child. "I am so tired that I am not hungry at all." She dimpled wanly at the innkeeper's wife, who was immediately struck with great sympathy for the poor girl.  
"Dearie me, dearie me," said the innkeeper's wife. "We won't keep you up, then. Don't worry about the food, my dear, just you pop back upstairs. Shall I run a warm bath for you before bed? A nice warm bath eases travel sores and tiredness away as quick as a wink, you mark my words." She helped the fairy-child off her chair, holding her hand as carefully as one would a piece of very delicate china.  
Tristran asked the innkeeper's wife whether he could be of any assistance, and was waved away by the very capable lady. "No indeed, you are our guests and you most certainly aren't to go to any trouble yourselves."  
"Very well, then," said Tristran. "Shall we retire to the common room, Yvaine?"  
The fire here was piled high and warm, despite the scarcity of occupants at the inn. Yvaine curled herself up in a chair by the window. Feathery flakes of snow drifted heavily past the windowpane, deceptively angelic. Yvaine's eyes wandered over the path her feet had trodden earlier that night, seeking tiny sparkling flecks of stardust where the snow had filled her footprints. There were none to be found, no shining imitations of her sisters twinkling in miniature. Through the flurry, the sky was obscured by darkened storm clouds, so that no stars shone down from the heavens. It seemed a most stifling night to Yvaine. She began a sigh of impatience, quick and quiet, but stopped short. A piece of darkness silhouetted itself against the white expanse of snowdrift; it was a dark horse, and a human shape rode astride its back. "Someone comes," she breathed. "At last!"  
"Oh?" Tristran said, stooping over to look. "It mayn't be the one we're waiting for, Yvaine. After all, young Gertrude wasn't."  
"If it isn't, then he is most exceedingly tardy," Yvaine said.  
"We've been waiting but--" Tristran began, but at that moment, the traveller entered. His cloak billowed about his calves in a most dramatic fashion and he was attired entirely in black, pitch as night and perfectly conspicuous, particularly given the cloth mask obscured the upper half of his head, where a pair of holes had been cut around where his eyes were, allowing him some vision. A sort of floppy hat reminiscent of highwaymen and other such shady characters reclined over the mask. The man took the hat off politely. "Good evening," he said. "It's a terrible night to be out and about, isn't it?"  
"I should most certainly think so," Tristran said, unperturbed. "I do hope you were not put to too much trouble, sir."  
"No, no trouble at all," the masked men assured Tristran. He studied the couple: the woman sat in her chair rather like a queen, and an odd sort of shimmer seemed to spark around her hair when studied closely, though he supposed that it wasn't so unusual in these parts. The man stood over her almost protectively, perhaps a knight protector to her? Yet there seemed to be a certain sort of reassuring quality in his eyes, as though one might find the will to trust him and not have cause to regret it. "And you both were able to seek shelter without undue mishap, I hope?"  
"We had little trouble," Tristran said. "The storm only hit very hard once we had already reached this inn."  
"How odd," said the stranger. "I could have sworn I saw footprints in the snow, though of course I could not quite see so clearly."  
"It was not us," Yvaine said. "_We_ have been here for quite some time already."  
The innkeeper bustled in then, with a tankard of spiced mead for the masked man, and the insistence that if any of the travellers needed a thing they had but to call for him. Beaming all across his florid face at his customers, for his inn was both new as well as in a rather isolated place where few travellers ventured, he exited with a flutter of joy in his heart.  
The stranger stripped his gloves off to warm his hands by the fire. "You do not appear to have come from around Faerie," said Tristran. "Where have you come from, if you do not mind telling us?"  
"Ah," said the stranger. "I have come from behind me, of course, as every good vagabond comes."  
Neither Tristran nor Yvaine moved perceptibly, but Tristran's eyes took on a new sort of watchfulness, and Yvaine's position in the chair seemed a touch electrified.  
"While this area does have its charms, which I assume will be more visible under the light of day and unmarred by heavy snowfall, I'm afraid I won't be able to stay very long to appreciate them," said the man. "I wonder; are you both headed towards anywhere in particular?"  
"We go before us," Tristran answered promptly, the oft-practised words slipping easily off his tongue. He started. "I appear to have forgotten my manners; my mother would have my head. I am Tristran, and this is my wife, Yvaine."  
"And we have been at this inn for quite long enough," Yvaine muttered.  
"Hmm," said the masked man. "Under most circumstances I would not hesitate to give my name, but these are extenuating, you understand. Yet not to give a name would be exceedingly discourteous, and I do endeavour to avoid discourtesy. Furthermore, I appear to have already given offence with my rather tardy arrival, and so it would be prudent to give some form of name. Very well." So ending his monologue, he said, "Call me Roberts, if you will. It was a title I was known by until recently, though I have omitted the rather ostentatious precursor to the common name in the interest of keeping my identity a secret."  
"Have none informed you, Roberts, that you have a tendency to rattle on like an unlatched window on a gusty day?" Yvaine inquired in acidic tones.  
"Not in quite so many words," Roberts said thoughtfully. He paused for a few moments before adding, "I admit I find such honesty refreshing."  
"That is most fortunate," said Tristran diplomatically.  
"Indeed," Roberts agreed. "Oddly enough, I feel I may trust the both of you." He plunged his hand into the depths of his cloak. "I have here a missive. As you go whence the road leads, by which I understand you to mean when you say you go before yourselves, perhaps the opportunity to deliver this message will present itself."  
"Perhaps it shall," Tristran agreed. "It would not inconvenience us, I do not think. We would be pleased to help you with your request."  
"I am most obliged," Roberts said.  
At that very moment, a muffled shriek rang out, accompanied by the sound of splashing water. In a flash, Tristran was running for the stairs, with Roberts close at his heels. "There," said Roberts. "That room!"  
"I believe it belongs to young miss Gertrude," said Tristran. He raised his voiced. "Miss Gertrude! Are you all right?"  
Odd sounds came from the room, and Roberts looked over to Tristran, quietly signalling with his eyes. They crept up to the door with the intention of knocking it over, when it opened, and the innkeeper's wife came out. "Oh, dearie me, what a to do!" she exclaimed. "I can be so dreadfully careless I don't know what to do with myself!" She beamed brightly, perhaps overly so, and her hands twitched nervously.  
"Are you quite all right?" Yvaine asked, coming up from behind Tristran and Roberts. The innkeeper himself had also come up, his hurried dash slowed by his girth.  
"Oh yes, indeed!" nodded the innkeeper's wife, eager to reassure. "I was merely a little clumsy and upset the water jug, and I was so startled I let out a little scream. I must have startled myself more than the poor child!" She laughed thin and high.  
"Good God, is she all right?" asked the innkeeper worriedly.  
His wife swallowed a few times, but settled for nodding. "I…should go in and look after her," she said, almost reluctantly, as she inched back towards the door.  
A wet head popped around the door as the woman reached for the handle. "Oh my," said the fairy-child, placing a thin hand at her mouth. "Please, sir, I'm all right, and I wouldn't want you to worry after you've all been so kind to me." She stared appealingly up at the innkeeper. "I only need to finish my bath, and go to bed."  
"I-I shall help her," said the innkeeper's wife haltingly. She turned to push the waifish girl in, holding her arms out woodenly, and she closed the door behind them.  
"All right then," said the innkeeper uncertainly. "Well, it's nothing to worry about." He clapped Tristran on the shoulder heartily and turned down to go back to the kitchens.  
"I do not think it is nothing," Yvaine said softly to Tristran. "I saw her eyes, Tristran, just before she went back in. They were utterly terrified."  
"There is something very odd about this inn," Tristran agreed. "She was the only guest to arrive after us, aside from Roberts, and you did say there were footprints in the snow. But at the rate the snow was falling, they ought to have filled up long ago."  
"I don't know that I disagree," said Roberts, sheathing his sword. "Odd footprints that ought to have filled with snow hours ago and a mysterious incident with an unknown guest… While I do not count myself a fool, I once went in against a Sicilian with death on the line, which I am told only the very foolish engage in, so in some circles suppose I may be considered one. But if you will heed the rather empty gut of an alleged fool, I would not stay the night at this inn." And with that, he turned on his heel and strode down the stair with a final billow of his fine cloak.  
"This is a fine pickle," Yvaine said. "I think I must agree with Roberts, though it irks me to agree with someone who prattles on as he does."  
"What is that child?" Tristran wondered softly. "Yvaine, we cannot leave the innkeeper and his wife alone to face her."  
"Did you not see her pointed ears?" Yvaine asked. "Fool, she is most certainly not human. We cannot simply charge head-first into every little trouble that falls our way. Attend, Lord of Stormhold: you have no male issue and we are both aware that cutting my heart out will render me quintessentially mortal. Would you plunge your domain into chaos so recklessly?"  
Tristran struggled to answer her, horror warring with the unsettling truth of her words. "No," he said finally. "Of course I would not. You are right, Yvaine."  
"Good," she said briskly. "Come, we must get out as quickly as possible."  
"But," Tristran said stubbornly. "I must warn the innkeeper, at the very least. There may be no help for his wife, as she was already in Gertrude's thrall, but perhaps…"  
Yvaine looked at him for a long moment, and sighed. "You would not be yourself if you did not," she said. "It is most exasperating. I shall gather our things, while you go. But make haste. I do not think your mother would forgive either of us if you died here."  
They left the inn through the storm, carefully keeping away from the footprints in the snow. Yvaine breathed easier, and they pressed on into the woods where they evaded a pack of ravening wolves and found themselves a more populous inn for the remainder of the night.  
Some years later, when Tristran and Yvaine passed that way again, they made inquiries after the innkeeper. They were told that there was no longer an inn but an abandoned ruin in that part of the woods. No one knew, or seemed to know, what had happened to the innkeeper, or his wife, or the fairy-child who had called herself Gertrude.

**Author's Note:**

> The missive is strictly need to know (but may be part of a thingummy for the Fellowship of the Castle).  
> This was meant to be posted in response to the [](http://community.livejournal.com/31_days/profile)[**31_days**](http://community.livejournal.com/31_days/) October 24th prompt, but somehow it grew too long to be posted then, and then sort of doesn't relate to the prompt any more...  
> _A little child, a limber elf,  
> Singing, dancing, to itself,  
> A fairy thing with red round cheeks,  
> That always finds, and never seeks,  
> Makes such a vision to the sight  
> As fills a father's eyes with light;  
> And pleasures flow in so thick and fast  
> Upon his heart, that he at last  
> Must needs express his love's excess  
> With words of unmeant bitterness.  
> Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together  
> Thoughts so all unlike each other;  
> To mutter and mock a broken charm,  
> To dally with wrong that does no harm.  
> Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty  
> At each wild word to feel within  
> A sweet recoil of love and pity.  
> And what, if in a world of sin  
> (O sorrow and shame should this be true!)  
> Such giddiness of heart and brain  
> Comes seldom save from rage and pain,  
> So talks as it's most used to do._  
> -Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge  
> This is the only part of Christabel I liked.  
> Roberts comes from a movie, and I really don't think it's all that hard to guess which one.


End file.
